Dell Venue Pro sold out within 90 minutes in UK swarm

The UK Dell Swarm for the Venue Pro has finished within 90 minutes of launch. The device was priced at £179.50 (about $285 US), a half price steep drop from the usual £359.00 and a reported 60 units were snapped up in an expected rush. We saw a similiar price reduction on Dell's U.S. website some months ago.

Featuring a 4.1" AMOLED screen, bottom-sliding QWERTY keyboard and SD card compatibility, it's been a crowd favourite, regardless of the software issues. It's a Windows Phone that grows on you.

This could be a move by Dell to clear out inventory and get out of the Windows Phone market. Hopefully, it's a move to clear the stock shelves to make room for a 2nd generation handset from Dell with FF camera and a smarter rear camera? One can only dream.

NFL Live Tile - Mango App Spotlight

NFL Live Tile is a novelty app that just hit the Windows Phone Marketplace. It is a Mango app, so you'll need your Windows Phone updated, and allows you to display a little team pride on your Start Screen.

NFL Live Tile creates a tile on your Start Screen designed around your favorite NFL team logo. The tile is "live" in the it is double sided and flips every few seconds. You do have the ability to add text to the either side of the tile (e.g. Go Team, Packers Rule, Falcons Rule, etc).

It would be nice if the tile would update with your team's scores or display the next game on the schedule automatically. Another thing to remember about NFL Live Tile is that it won't save your text within the app. If you launch the app after creating a tile, the text fields will be blank. If you enter new text, you'll need to make sure your team logo is selected or you'll get a blank tile.

While NFL Live Tile feels like a work in progress, if you're looking for a way to add a little team spirit to your Start Screen, NFL Live Tile is worth a gander. It's a free app and if you're running Mango you can download it here (opens Zune) at the Marketplace.

HTC Locations and Connected Media apps now in the Marketplace [Mango]

HTC continues to roll out the news apps. Today they released two of them, the first up is Locations: "Save your favorite locations with photo, voice and note. Share your favorite locations to your friends"

The app is quite basic and is basically HTC's Footprints from their Sense days on Windows Mobile. In short, you launch it, it finds your location and then you take a photo. With that pic you can add a category, give it a title, address and add a voice memo. You can then share it via email or messaging. Pretty basic, but kind of cool. You can find that app here in the Marketplace. Mango only.

The second app is a little more robust. Connected Media, which we reported on earlier, allows you to "View photos and play music on video stored on media servers. You can also send media from your device to networked media players, such as TVs or set top boxes"

Unfortunately, this app requires a newer phone like the Radar or Titan as our Arrive doesn't support DLNA, which is what this uses. C'est la vie. If you still want to try, pick it up here in the Marketplace.

Microsoft Taiwan launches interactive Metro site for Mango contest

Yesterday we reported that Microsoft Taiwan may be getting ready to release Windows Phone Mango--either an update or new devices. Instead, it turns out to be a promotion...a pretty cool promotion at that. The site you see above is a bunch of Tiles with photos from Facebook users who've uploaded their pics to the site. In turn, they're entered in a contest to win a Mango phone, which we have to admit is pretty clever. It joins the unique KDDI/Facebook People Hub generator site we saw earlier.

Even more clever is how on the site you can grab the screen and scroll around. We even like how the tiles switch with sideways animation---which raises the question, could Microsoft add sideways tile animation to display even more info?

Me Series: short films showing life of WP users

As we still stand in awe at Microsoft's superb job at the design and structure of the Windows Phone YouTube page, we've noticed they've started a new series of short films that cover the lives of Windows Phone users. The clip above follows the work of the Eagle Rock Yacht Club, a non-profit dodge ball league and community-focused organisation founded by Chris Alves and Craig Fowler in Los Angeles, and how it's easier for them to keep socially active to help spread awareness via network integration on the platform.

It's an interesting take on "social good", which is never a bad thing for platform publicity and brand awareness. I think what will surprise most folk is how Microsoft is going about Windows Phone. Wonder if they'll come to WPCentral for us to explain how WP is helping our lives at the office. This'll be the picture of our Me Series video:

AVG in their response write a lot but say very little. In short, they state their motivations for entering the WP7 ecosystem--something we don't begrudge them for, even if our security seems "tough enough". They then go on to say they worked with Microsoft on the app, including training, app feedback and suggested changes. Finally they claim that:

We do not share or otherwise disclose your data to anyone without your permission.

We do not mine your data for patterns.

We do not use your data to target ads.

We do not access your location data without your permission.

Regarding the scan engine, they have this to say:

"Having the security engines implemented in the product, we believe we can respond to security threats targeting the Windows Phone 7 platform to protect our users, whenever such threats arrive –as we have with Android — and we are committed to continuing to develop this security product to reflect the constantly changing threat landscape."

Fair enough. Honestly, at this point we don't really believe AVG was being malicious here but rather perhaps a little naive. Still, we'll wait for Microsoft to weigh in on the issue before coming to a final conclusion. Read the whole response here.

HTC 2nd in J.D. Power customer survey with Nokia and RIM below average

The J.D. Power and Associates' latest US customer satisfaction survey has displayed some interesting findings. Apple is first in the results, which is perfectly understandable as every iOS user has either a household full of Apple products already or are simply satisfied with Apple hardware. No matter what you think of Apple as a company or iOS (and OS X) as operating systems - Apple makes killer hardware.

HTC is second, thanks to the successful injection of handsets running Android. What will be interesting for HTC is the customer satisfaction potentially rising with the Titan and Radar, which are both beast devices. Unfortunately for RIM, they're well below average and are in between LG and Motorola (now Google) and will not help the cause with investors calling RIM to sell itself or patents. Nokia are last, could this be due to Symbian (among other factors) and not the actual hardware? Only time will tell with their launch of Windows Phone handsets.

From Here app offers decent alternative to Scout [Mango]

Although Scout in Mango is a pretty awesome feature, not everyone will have access to the services as it is dependent on your country/region. On top of that, perhaps you just want an alternative, which is where From Here comes in. A free app by Armanovus, the program is a Mango-only app (sorry folks) that is exceptionally fast and well designed in terms of UI.

It's simple enough: launch it, it locates you and you have per-defined categories to look up things e.g. Coffee, Banks/ATM, Gas Stations, Hospital, Hotels, etc. In other words, it's great for those who travel. You can also search for anything (powered by Google, but uses Bing maps) and get turn-by-turn/step-by-step directions to your destination. Going further, you can even share the destination via Facebook, Twitter, SMS or email.

Like we said, the app is very fast, smooth and very well designed. Our only complaint is it's in kilometers with no miles option, otherwise it's pretty solid. It's free with no ads, so give it a go. Pick it up here in the Marketplace.

Native development access for developers [Homebrew]

KDDI, the Japanese carrier that launched the Fujitsu IS12T, has published an app in the Marketplace that enables users to migrate contact information from feature phones to their new Windows Phone handset. To do this developers will need system access to be able to manipulate base functionality.

To achieve this level of access, the contacts migration app uses the Microsoft.Phone.InteropServices.dll. The guys over at Nanapho.jp have published a short tutorial on how to carry out this native programming yourself. They do note however that the Marketplace doesn't allow this so it's only gravy for homebrew developers who wish to gain native access. Also, the registry is not included for the time being.

PLATFORMANCE Temple Death released to the Marketplace

We covered the original Platformance way back in February and really loved it. The game is an old school platformer that is, um, really hard. But it's done so well we can almost forgive how hard it is. Almost. Seriously, you'll die like a hundred times in the first 10 minutes.

Still, we're pretty excited to see that Magiko Gaming was happy enough with Windows Phone that they're back for more with 'Temple Death':

"While filming her latest movie, famous starlet Grace Belly gets abducted by a sect of evil savages. You decide to go and rescue her down the ‘Temple Death’- a place filled with evil traps where only the fools can survive. Just like its predecessor “PLATFORMANCE: Castle Pain” (already available on WP7), “PLATFORMANCE: Temple Death” is a challenging platformer that takes place in a giant single level filled with deadly traps and puzzles."

Features:

over 40 challenges to overcome

zoom in on the action or zoom out to see the whole level

3 difficulty modes with their own traps configuration

take screenshots to send to your friends or brag over the internet

Local scoreboards

Rewards

Flopwards!

chiptune music

once at the end, experience the game backward

Play the game backwards? Guys, you had us at 'Flopwards'. Take our money, now! There's a trial version and the full version will fetch you an extremely reasonable $0.99. Pick it up here in the Marketplace.

Microsoft looking for sales training manager

Microsoft appears to be taking sales staff who don't consider Windows Phone as a competitive platform extremely seriously, and rightly so. We ran an article a while back that broke light on Robert McLaws creating a web site that users can report on experiences with carrier (or store) salesmen when enquiring about Windows Phone. Results were far from positive.

Now that HTC are making a big push for WP Mango with the HTC Radar and Titan, it makes sense for Microsoft to really clamp down on biassed sales work. A job opening at Redmond has arisen for a Training Manager in Services and Support. This could well be the first step in the battle against the sales reps, then again I'm sure Mango devices will begin to speak for themselves.

Scoble gets a peek at Nokia Windows Phone? Not so fast...

Robert Scoble was in the midst of travels when he ran into Reno Marioni, who runs global partnerships for Nokia. Scoble was able to glance at one Nokia phone (seen above) and learned that there was a "secret" phone in the man's briefcase that he couldn't not check out.

We really want to believe what we see above is a Nokia Windows Phone with NFC on board--after all, he's blocking those distinctive Windows keys, right? Unfortunately, no. If you look at the top bar with the service icons (battery, time, signal) you'll see these match up with the N9 exactly. So that's a shame.

The good news is Scoble was quite impressed with what he saw from Nokia: "...but the current phone he did show me is damn nice. I might have to rethink Nokia's chances. We'll be paying attention this fall to what they announce.", lending credence to the idea that we're in for a nice ride come later this year.

KDDI People Hub Generator shows the power of Windows Phone

Oh Japan and KDDI, you're sure showing us Yanks up on how to market your phones. In what has to be one of the coolest demonstrations of Windows Phone, KDDI, who has released the Fujitsu IS12T in Japan, made a Flash animation project called a People Hub Generator.

In short, you allow it connect to your Facebook where it pulls in your friend's photos, your info etc. (don't worry, it's for a cool reason). You then watch a bunch of Windows Phone workers running around "making" your People Hub, but on the tiles instead of generic people you'll find all of your friends and even your profile picture within the mini-film itself. Yes, George Lucas would be impressed.

Other than that it doesn't do anything but you can then share the film on Facebook. We think it's a neat way to show off Windows Phone though. Give it a shot here: http://www.au-windowsphone.jp/

Free Music Downloader lands in the Marketplace

Fast Code, the developers of SuperTube, has released Free Music Downloader over at the Windows Phone Marketplace. Free Music Downloader is a free, ad-supported version of SuperMusic that was released just a few days ago. I know... it's a little confusing.

Why the developer didn't go with "SuperMusic Free" or "SuperMusic Lite" for the free version is a bit of a mystery but variety is the spice of life. Both apps are basically the same. Free Music Downloader has the ad banners and SuperMusic allows you to sync your downloaded music files with your computer. Beyond that, the layout is identical.

Free Music Downloader and SuperMusic allows you to download free music, audiobooks and podcasts from various websites and organize them into playlists. You can customize the app with background images from your Pictures Hub and add your favorite download sites to the existing list of about forteen download sites.

To download a tune, simply tap on the website listing on the Favorites Page and a web browser will open up to that website. From there all you need to do is find the song, tap the download link on the webpage and the download begins.

The artists don't appear to be mainstream bands but the music selection is wide ranging and some of the tunes aren't too shabby. All in all, if your looking for a music download app either version is worth looking into.

Free Music Downloader is a free, ad supported app that you can download here (opens Zune) at the Marketplace. SuperMusic has a free trial version with the full version running $1.29 which you can find here at the Marketplace.